Some notes on the Von der Goltz codex of Acts, Paul’s letters, and the catholic letters

Codex 184.B.64 of the monastery of the Laura on Mt. Athos was one of the manuscripts examined by von Soden and von der Goltz in a trip to the mountain in the winter of 1898. The presence of subscriptios to the letters of Paul, and scholia, caught the attention of the latter, who published an article about it in TU 17.4 in 1899. He was able to collate the ms. and to copy the old scholia.

The manuscript itself is 10th century, and bound between two boards, with brown leather covers. It contains 102 parchment leaves, each 23 x 17.5 cms in size. The written area is 17 x 11 cm, and has 35 lines. The ms. contains Acts, Paul’s letters, and the catholic letters. Each quire is of 8 leaves. The first sheet is a later replacement, and two quires are missing from the beginning, which perhaps contained some form of introductory matter. Originally a copy of Revelation followed. The text is written in an early minuscule, and the scholia in a careful semi-uncial. The chapters are numbered.

The manuscript was thoroughly revised by a later hand which also erased to some extent the majority of the ancient scholia and marginalia, and added the Euthalian chapter numbers. But there are also traces of large red letters under the “original” text, suggesting that it too is a palimpsest.